WELLINGTON (AFP) — New Zealand's national museum said Thursday it was still optimistic that the preserved head of an indigenous Maori warrior would be returned from France despite a court decision blocking the move.
Paul Brewer, the marketing and communications director of the museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, said the situation was now out of New Zealand hands but he was hopeful it would be resolved.
"We are not particularly concerned by the events of the last couple of days," Brewer said.
"It's an issue between the (French) museum and the French government and they need to be comfortable that everything is being done according to their own systems."
The head has been held by a museum in the western city of Rouen since its donation by a French collector in 1875. The mayor of Rouen had decided to return the head but a French court on Wednesday blocked the move after the government argued it was a part of French heritage.
French Culture Minister Christine Albanel ordered the governor of Rouen to take legal action to suspend the head's return.
"For the time being the Maori head will stay in Rouen. A final decision will be taken before the end of the year," a French court official said.
The preserved heads of warriors with facial tattoos were popular with European collectors in the 19th century before the gruesome trade was outlawed.
Te Papa has been campaigning for the return of preserved heads and other human remains kept in overseas collections.
"The fact that a number have allowed us to repatriate human remains is fantastic, but we're not going to be successful by shouting from the rooftops," Brewer said.
"The way we will be successful is just quietly maintaining cordial relations with the institutions."
Auckland Museum's Maori collection director, Peter Tapsell, said the preserved head had nothing to do with France's heritage.
"Basically, we're talking about the protection of the trade in human beings," he told the New Zealand Herald newspaper.
Following the settlement of New Zealand by mainly British Europeans from the 19th century, the indigenous Maori now make up about 15 percent of the country's 4.1 million people.
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